Everyone hasn’t turned on Ja Morant just yet. Former NBA sharpshooter JJ Redick has come out to defend the Grizzlies star point guard.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver spoke about Morant ahead of yesterday’s NBA draft lottery. He stated that he was disappointed in the 23-year-old.
“Honestly, I was shocked when I saw, this weekend, that video,” Silver said in a televised interview with ESPN before the draft lottery in Chicago. “We’re in the process of investigating it and we’ll figure out exactly what happened as best as we can. The video’s a bit grainy and all that, but I’m assuming the worst. We’ll figure out exactly what happened there.”
Reporters and NBA analysts close to the situation are predicting Morant probably will serve a 40-game suspension next season. The latest incident came just two months after he was in the commissioner’s office for having a gun on Instagram Live inside of a Denver nightclub.
40 Games Too Much?
Redick pushed back on the lengthy suspension that many are predicting for Morant. He made one of his regular guest appearances on ESPN’s “First Take” show and didn’t hold back in a spirited response.
“We can go into the backstory with the incident with the teenager, Ja is claiming self-defense that the teenager threw the ball in his face. We can go into the incident with the mall when he yelled at the security guard. We can go into the incident with the Indiana Pacers traveling party. As far as we know … all of these things have been investigated and no law has been broken,” Redick said on Wednesday’s edition of “First Take”.
He continued, “I’m not condoning the behavior, I’m not saying there should be no punishment. There should be. There should be consequences, you are the face of the league.”
Then, Redick took it a step further and took a shot at the gun laws that many have begged to be changed.
“In our country right now the gun culture is pervasive. … We’ve got mass shooting after mass shooting and nobody is doing [anything] about it. … But there’s no consequence for [Texas Gov.] Greg Abbott telling his constituents that they should ‘go buy more guns’ and then we have mass shooting after mass shooting in Texas,” said Redick.
“There’s no consequence for an elected Tennessee official to send out a Christmas card holding AR-15s with his young family. And then there’s a shooting in his very district. There’s no consequences to that,” said Redick. “So why are we trying to lay down the hammer on a 23-year-old who didn’t break a law? Explain that to me.”
Is Ja Really Sorry?
Morant and his representatives released a statement to apologize on his social media yesterday.
The statement read:
“I know I’ve disappointed a lot of people who have supported me. This is a journey and I recognize there is more work to do. My words may not mean much right now, but I take full accountability for my actions. I’m committed to continuing to work on myself.”
Many social media users believe the statement wasn’t sincere because they apparently weren’t his own words, with some even suggesting he drafted the statement using an AI app.
